With Mitsubishi hemming and hawing about the Lancer Evolution’s future, it’s only fitting that a feature on this legendary affordable supercar makes it to this blog. Although the Evo X is the most commonly known Lancer Evolution in the U.S. nowadays, the winning ways of the Evo, as it is known to the legions of its fans all over the world, actually began its winning ways with the Evo 3, when it was entered in the World Rally Championship to demonstrate its all-wheel drive capabilities. Since then, Evos have seen competition and success in dirt and paved surfaces. Even on the street, the sight of an Evo makes enthusiasts sit up and take notice because it is not a car to be trifled with, even it its stock 280 horsepower form.
One of the most unusual, and best engineered, competition Evos was the CT9 Evo of Team Orange, built for drifting by Jun Engineering of Japan. Despite its unassuming name, Jun is a very well-known and respected outfit and its products and workmanship are among the very best. For this build, the team decided to discard the AWD and transverse engine/transmission layout and instead convert the Evo 9 to a longitudinal front-engine/transmission layout.
Jun Engineering rebuilt the Mitsubishi 4G63 engine with a 2.2-liter stroker kit, specially developed for this application. Put together with other Jun internals, the engine is force-fed with a Trust TD06-25G turbo blowing 1.7 kg/cm of boost to produce an output of 540 reliable horsepower. In this cost-no-object build, a Hollinger 6-speed sequential transmission was fitted behind the engine, driving a Cusco limited-slip differential. DG-5 coilovers and the requisite competition brakes round out the other major components of the car. As befitting a proper competition car, the body was stripped and clad with lightweight panels to bring the car’s weight down to 1,250 kilos.
After various shakedowns and tuning, the car won the prestigious D1 drifting championship in the year it was entered in. Validation of such fine engineering work cannot have been done without a head for proper performance calculations and in this regard, Jun head Susumu Koyama is among the best.
Shakedown video:
With its Evo X teammate:
Source article here.
No comments:
Post a Comment